


Raindrops and Sunshine

by Rumaan



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Confessions, Drama, F/M, Romance, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-21
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-16 23:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11263569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rumaan/pseuds/Rumaan
Summary: Sana rushes to the airport to tell Yousef how she feels





	1. Airport

**Author's Note:**

> Written for @ultravanityglamme. This is the first part of the prompt which was: Sana never got her chance to tell Yousef he likes her too. It's a few hours before Yousef catches his flight and it's a rainy day. Sana regrets the choices she made with Yousef and goes to tell him as fast as she can. She sees Yousef about to go into the airport but shouts him name. They confess their feelings out in the rain, although Yousef insisted to get her out of the rain first. But yeah, they confess, but Yousef still leaves. 
> 
> The second part is coming!

“There! There he is!” Sana said frantically. “Pull over, Chris! Pull over.”

“Hang on,” Chris grumbled. “There’s nowhere to pull over right here.”

Sana peered through the rain than thrummed heavily onto the windscreen and then pointed to a few metres up ahead. “Look a space. Pull in. I need to catch him before he goes.”

Not even waiting for the van to stop probably, Sana jumped out, ignoring the shouts of her friends to wait and at least grab an umbrella. Her focus was purely on Yousef and telling him how much she liked him before he went to Turkey for the whole summer.

She’d spent the whole night awake, cursing herself for not going through with it and seeing him the night before. Instead, she’d been restless and irritated at her own cowardice for backing out all yesterday evening. The girls had tried to raise her spirits, but she’d been too annoyed and a little resentful at herself to allow them. Instead, she’d called an early night and gone home to sulk in her room instead until it was time to break fast. Then she’d sat through iftar wondering if she could have been eating with Yousef instead.

“Yousef,” she shouted, ignoring the looks of those around her and desperately trying to dodge through crowds sprinting into the terminal to avoid the rain.

He’d been just there a minute ago, but now she couldn’t see him anywhere.

“Yousef!” she yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth and ignoring the raindrops that fell into her eyes. She could feel that the downpour had already soaked through her hijab, which sat limply against her neck, soggy and uncomfortable.

Shoulders slumping, her eyes scanned the concourse one last time and she was about to turn back and head over to where the girls sat in the van and bemoan how she’d missed her opportunity to tell Yousef how she felt and now he was gone until August. A lot could happen in a month and a half. He could come back with a girlfriend. One who actually spent time with him and didn’t blow hot and cold.

_Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!_ she berated herself internally.

“Sana?” a voice called from behind her.

Whirling around, she wiped the rain out of her eyes and gaped as Yousef stood, suitcase by his side and confusion writ large on his face.

“I didn’t miss you!” she breathed out in relief.

“What are you doing here?”

“I-I-I,” she stuttered before closing her mouth and just drinking him in.

Why was it so hard to talk to him? Why couldn’t she just tell him that he was her soulmate, too? Instead, she was reduced to an awkward stammering mess around him who failed to communicate and just simmered with bottled up emotions and words.

“I li-,” she started to say before Yousef took hold of her arm.

“You’re soaked. You’re going to get sick,” Yousef said as he tugged her into the departures hall.

“You’re wet, too?” she pointed out.

“Yeah, but I’m not fasting. You can’t get sick whilst fasting. It’s the worst.”

He had a point and she was grateful to be out of the rain. Now all she needed to do was reach deep inside and open up. Tell him how she felt and not allow any more interruptions to happen between them.

“Here,” he said, handing her a towel and she realised that whilst she’d been trying to calm her nerves, he’d unzipped his suitcase and brought out a towel.

“I can’t use this. It will get all damp and then your suitcase will get all damp.”

Yousef smirked a little. “Turkey does sell towels, you know. I can buy one out there.”

She grinned at that and dabbed at her wet face, hoping that she didn’t smudge her makeup and end up looking like a raccoon in front of him. She couldn’t confess her feelings with eyeliner smeared around her eyes.

“Here,” she said, passing it back to him and trying not to stare as he roughly towel dried his hair.

_Advert the gaze_ , she told herself. _You’re fasting and should have better control over yourself._

It was a struggle, but she managed to focus on how uncomfortable she was now she was aware of just how wet her clothes were. It might be June but this was Norway not Morocco and it was still chilly. She shivered a little and wished she’d thought to bring a raincoat rather than just focusing on getting to Yousef on time.

“Cold?” he asked, and she looked up to where he was holding out a hoodie.

“You’re going to empty out your suitcase before you even get there,” she remarked, taking it and removing her own wet hoodie to put his on. It smelt of him and she just about managed to stop herself from burying her nose into the material and breathing in deeply.

“Anything for you, girl.”

Warmth swept through her chest at his words and she couldn’t resist gazing up at him then, the echo of the last time he’d said that to her. Or typed it. There was no mockery or amusement on his face. Just sincerity and a desire to look after her, which brought a sheen of tears to her eyes. She wasn’t used to people wanting to look out for her. She always had to be so strong and so independent. Yet, here was Yousef making sure she got as dry as possible and giving her warm clothes so she wouldn’t catch a chill. The realisation gave her the confidence to go for it.

“I like you,” she stated boldly. “I like you and I don’t want you to go to Turkey not knowing.”

Sana breathed out a sigh of relief after her confession. Those words had sat lodged in her throat, sometimes feeling as if they constricted her very breathing, for so long. It had eased slightly when she had told Noora and then Isak and the rest of the girls. But the person that needed to be told had been Yousef and now she could finally relax her shoulders and loosen the tightness in her chest.

He stared at her in wonderment and then his grin came out, wide and happy. “I like you, too.”

“I know, soulmate.”

Bringing his hands up to his face to cover his eyes for a moment, he winced. “Noora showed you the texts?”

“Yep.  I think she got fed up of being interrupted when she tried to explain it to me. I thought you were together with her.”

His face turned sober for a moment. “You saw us? At Syng?”

“Yeah.”

He stepped forward then with a serious face. “It was a mistake. I want you to know that. A horrible mistake that I regret so much. I should have pushed her away as soon as she kissed me. I don’t know why I went along with it. I just…I just lost all hope of something happening between us. Not that I’m offering that as an excuse.”

“It’s okay. Noora explained it to me.”

“I still wish it had never happened,” he said earnestly before his voice dropped into a huskier cadence. “And I wish you had never seen it. I…I’ve never felt this way about anyone before, Sana. You’re it for me. I know it in my bones.”

Her mom’s words about how young she was – how young they both were – floated into her mind, but she dismissed them. She knew this about him, too. It’s why she had tried to stay away. He wasn’t Muslim anymore and she couldn’t marry him. Not Islamically. But she also couldn’t stay away.

“Me, too,” she said, not needing any more words but grasping his hand briefly. She wasn’t sure just how this was going to work but surely they could figure something out. There was some way they could be together. “I’m not having twelve kids though.”

Yousef threw back his head and laughed. “Can we compromise on six?”

Narrowing her eyes, she said, “Maybe. A basketball team is more manageable.”

The tannoy cut across them then. “Last call for flight TK 1752 to Istanbul to check in. Any passengers for flight TK 1752 to Istanbul make your way to the check in desk now please.”

“That’s me,” Yousef said, regret in his voice.

“Go,” she said. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

With a last brush of their hands, Yousef turned and headed over to the check in desks. Sana watched him the whole way, already counting down the days until he returned.

\----------

“Nice Hoodie,” Eva laughed once Sana got back to the van.

The sleeves hung over her hands and it came down mid-thigh, but Sana didn’t care how stupid she looked wearing it. It was his and she missed him already.

“Went well then?” Noora asked.

“I finally got to say it,” she replied, pulling the hood up higher over her head so she could smell him even more around her. He was going to be gone for almost two months and she would take any link to him she could get.

“You go, girl!” Chris crowed.

“Aww so romantic! An airport love confession. Did the crowd clap when you kissed?”

“Nei, Vilde!” Sana said.

“You can’t kiss him, can you? At least, not when fasting?” Noora asked.

“But you can kiss him, right?” Vilde asked, confused.

Sana rolled her eyes and hit the dashboard. “ _Yalla_ , let’s go!”

 


	2. Istanbul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sana travels to Istanbul to see Yousef.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second part of the prompt from @ultravanityglamme: Yousef sends Elias some money by post so they can book a ticket for Sana - so she can have her first date with Yousef in Turkey and meet his family.

Sana hung back when they got through to the arrivals lounge. Her heart beat heavy in her chest and she tried to regulate her breathing to calm down. However, it wasn’t working. She was nervous and a little unsure and she hated it.

She thought she was over this stage by now. Their confession of feelings at the airport should have meant that it was all easy between them by now. Yet, it wasn’t. It was one thing to speak constantly via text, facebook and snapchat but it was something else to see Yousef face to face again. It had been over a month.

Almost as if sensing Sana’s distress, Jamilla turned around and beckoned her to hurry up. Plastering a fake smile on her face, Sana picked up her pace, her heart calming a tad when Jamilla linked her arm through Sana’s and pulled her close.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be fine,” Jamilla said.

“You don’t think I’m crazy?”

Jamilla smiled softly and replied, “Remember when I first got with Tawfiq, you all went to Morocco a week later and I didn’t see him for the whole summer. I was such a nervous wreck the day you came back. Sure he’d changed his mind and didn’t want to be with me anymore.”

Sana snorted. Her brother was so head over heels for Jamilla it was hilarious to think about him ever rejecting her. “He counted down the days until we returned. I’m pretty sure he marked it off in a book. And he told all our cousins about the gorgeous Muslimah he was going to marry as soon as he could persuade her that he would be the best husband for her.”

“See? It turned out great for us.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t follow him to Morocco and look insanely desperate. He might think I’m being too clingy.”

“Okay, I know no one was ever meant to tell you this, but Yousef sent Elias the money to buy you a ticket he missed you so much. Transferred it before Eid even and begged Elias to get you a ticket and persuade your parents to let you come out.”

“Really?” Sana asked a smile blooming on her face.

“Yep. Obviously there was no way _Amo_ and _Khalto_ were letting you come out alone, so Elias said he would come and I persuaded Tawfiq that we needed a holiday to Istanbul, too. There’s no way I’m missing on seeing Sana Bakkoush deep in love with the man of her dreams.”

The smile dropping from her face, Sana said, “I’m not sure we can marry, though. He’s not Muslim.”

It was Jamilla’s turn to snort. “Yeah, okay. Yousef Acar isn’t Muslim. I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“But he isn’t. He says he doesn’t believe.”

“And maybe he doesn’t, but he’s not the first Muslim to have doubts, think he’s turned away from the _deen_ then only to find that he is wrong. I have a cousin who did that. Ended up marrying a Muslim and reconnecting with her faith.”

She knew Jamilla’s words shouldn’t get her hopes up. That she had to come to terms with the fact that Yousef wasn’t a Muslim and figure out just how they could work around that. And yet, she couldn’t help it. If Yousef believed once more in Allah then everything between them would be perfect. Truly soulmates in every sense of the word.

A shout from Elias ahead had both girls looking over. Sana stopped walking when she saw Elias sprinting in the direction of Yousef, arms outstretched as if they hadn’t seen each other for a decade not a month. A pang of jealousy speared her chest as she realised that she wanted to be able to do that. To run across a crowded airport and jump into Yousef’s arms, but she couldn’t. So, instead, she grabbed the trolley piled high with suitcases that Elias had abandoned and slowly made her way over to where Yousef waited.

His eyes caught hers and her breath came in shallow bursts once more as the familiar anticipation and overwhelming joy she felt in his presence flooded through her. Even though Elias was chattering in his ear, Yousef did not move his dark brown eyes from her and she blushed a little under the scrutiny. She wondered if she would ever get used to just how it felt to be the centre of one man’s attention the way she always was with Yousef. How he paid attention to her every move in a way no one else did. She couldn’t imagine ever finding it normal.

“Hey,” she said once she made it over and internally winced at how breathless it sounded.

“Hey,” he said with a deep grin before he turned to her brother and shoved his shoulder lightly. “Seriously, Elias, you left Sana to push all these suitcases.”

Elias rolled his eyes. “It’s two suitcases. Tawfiq has the others and she’s strong enough.”

However, Yousef grabbed the trolley off Sana, his fingers brushing lingeringly over hers as he did so. “My cousin is waiting outside with the car. Let’s get out of here.”

Observing him out the corner of her eye, Sana noticed how much Turkey suited him. His skin had darkened into a tawny olive brown and the humidity made his hair curl up at the ends. He also appeared lighter somehow as if a burden had been lifted off his shoulders. She couldn’t help but smile as he bantered with Elias and asked after the rest of the boys.

Then they were outside in the bright hot Turkish sun and it took Sana a moment or two or catch her breath at how warm it felt in her lungs. This always happened to her when she arrived in Tangiers, too. There always needed to be some adjustment from the chilly Nordic summer to actual heat. However, she turned her face up to the sun and basked in the warmth.

Yousef led them over to where his cousin waited. Yousef introduced them all and Sana couldn’t help but blush a little when Mehmet scrutinised her a little longer than everyone else.

“It’s good you’re here, Sana,” Mehmet said in English with a teasing smile towards Yousef. “Now we might actually see more than the top of Yousef’s head.”

“I do not spend that much time on my phone,” Yousef objected.

Mehmet snorted. “We had to buy you a battery pack on your second day because you ran out of battery and wanted to go back home so you could charge your phone.”

“That car’s waiting to get this spot, I think we should get moving,” Yousef said, obviously changing the subject and dodging a punch to the arm from Elias.

Squashed into the front seat with Jamilla with Mehmet driving whilst the three boys sat in the back with a couple of suitcases, Sana couldn’t help but meet Yousef’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. She had missed him.

 

\-----------

Sana gazed up in awe at the Blue Mosque. It was more impressive as she thought it would be. A grand and beautiful monument to prayer that was a far cry from the small mosques in Oslo or even the more squat with square minaret styles of Mosque they had in Morocco. This was magnificent on a scale that could rarely be matched with it’s needle thin minarets that swept up into the air with grace and the dooms that sat grandly between them, rising off each other into inspiring layers that took the breathe away.

Walking into the cool interior, she had to admit it gave her a deeper feeling of reverence than the Aya Sofya had, which was the more famous of the two imposing landmarks in Sultanahmet Square. It was lighter in here, the large wheel chandeliers hanging low and lightening the carpeted prayer area, while the multitude of windows cut high into the walls showed off the exquisite tiling and decoration that covered the doomed ceilings.

After dropping their belongings off in the small hotel they were staying in just off Sultanahmet Square and freshening up, they had gone straight out to see the two famous landmarks. First the Aya Sofya, where Yousef had whispered in her ear that he had fulfilled his promise to bring her and now to pray Maghreb in the Blue Mosque.

Breaking off from the boys with Jamilla to go and pray in the sisters’ section, Sana felt peace infuse through her as her forehead touched the carpet laid out across the floor of the Mosque. There was a sentiment of history here; a sense of following in the footsteps of millions of people before you who had prayed in this exact spot for century upon century. It always felt like this in the old Mosques, the ones that had stood for centuries and millennia, almost as if there was a thread that connected you to the Muslims who had preceded you.

When she and Jamilla had finished their prayers, they walked back into the centre of the Mosque. Still unable to comprehend the beauty, Sana gazed around her until Jamilla nudged her.

“See, what did I say?”

Sana followed her sister-in-law’s finger to where it pointed towards three figures praying at the front. Tilting her head in confusion, she realised the figure next to Elias was Yousef.

“He’s praying?!” she exclaimed and continued to watch him in dumbstruck silence until they’d finished and joined her and Jamilla.

In response to her quizzical look, Yousef ran a hand through his hair before putting his snapback back on his hair and giving her a sheepish smile. Jamilla, astute as always, herded Tawfiq and Elias out with her.

“You’re praying?!” Sana asked him in bemusement.

“Yeah.”

“What? How?”

“Something just clicked when I arrived here,” he said. “Istanbul is such a modern city. Lots of people aren’t religious or have no interest in being religious, but the _Adhaan_ still calls out across the city for every prayer and my first morning here, it woke me up at Fajr and at the sound of it my heart lightened. Before I knew it, I was out of bed, making wudhu and praying. I thought of you, too, of how you spoke about the peace prayer brings you and it was the same for me. I hadn’t realised just how it allowed me a sense of stopping, taking stock and just breathing for five minutes, five times a day. I’ve been praying ever since.”

Tears filled her eyes at his words and a feeling of rightness settled in her chest. Her inability to walk away from Yousef, even after he’d told her he wasn’t Muslim, even after the kiss with Noora and her mum’s words about how lonely it would be to marry someone who doesn’t share your faith, finally made sense.

“ _SubhanAllah_ ,” she murmured as she realised how everything had been building towards this point. She wasn’t compromising her faith to be with Yousef, to not be married in the eyes of Allah, instead they had been treading down a road where the outcome was unforeseen to all but God.

“Hey, don’t cry,” Yousef said, raising a hand and brushing tears she didn’t even realise had fallen. “I don’t want you make you cry.”

She smiled tremulously and said, “I’m so happy. I didn’t think I could be this happy.”

Their eyes locked and the Aya from Surah An-Naba filled her head: _And we created you in pairs._

\-----------

“Huh!” Sana exclaimed once Yousef got his guide book out and started reciting some facts. “We really are going site-seeing.”

He looked adorably confused for a moment and then said, “Yeah. Why? What did you think was happening?”

“I thought everyone just set this up so we could spend some actual time together. Not because you’re just a giant history nerd.”

“Wow,” Yousef said, his eyebrows going up and giving a little nod of his head. “Wow. I don’t get to have depths?”

Sana grinned. “You already have peeling carrots and kindergarten. You want more depths?”

“I have layers. I’m a veritable onion. Just because I don’t know about the amino acids of a cockroach-”

“Antibiotic molecules,” Sana interrupts with a teasing cough.

“Really? You’re correcting me again?”

“It’s not my fault you can’t remember scientific facts.”

“We’ll see how good you are at remembering historical facts when I quiz you at the end of this tour.”

“It’s the holidays! You can’t be mean enough to quiz me.”

“Watch me. Look at that tower over there. Can you see it? The old one?”

Sana looked across the Golden Horn from Sultanahmet to Karaköy. “Yeah.”

“That’s the Galata tower. It’s where the first intercontinental flight took place in 1638. Remember that date cos it’s going to be in the quiz.”

Sana laughed. “So where are we going now, _Ya Ustad_?”

“The Süleymaniye Mosque. It’s my favourite in the whole of Istanbul and was built by the great Sinan.”

“You love being here, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Don’t you like to go home?”

Sana thought about the small town in Morocco where she was from. It wasn’t a great metropolis like Istanbul, just a small fishing town where the population trebled in the summer from all the Moroccans who lived in Europe coming back to visit family and holiday. And even though she’d been born and brought up in Oslo, Larache did feel like home. There was a sense of belonging there even if she’d never lived there. A community feel especially in the summer when so many Moroccans from across Europe travelled back. Many of them, like her, straddled two different cultures and often felt like they didn’t belong to either.

“I do.”

“Maybe one day you can take me there and show me the sights.”

She snorted. “Yeah, there’s not much to see in Larache. Just the beach, really. It’s not like this,” she said, spreading her hands wide at the unique and amazing vista that Istanbul offered. “You’d be bored within two days.”

“I’d like to see it with you,” Yousef said. “I’d like to meet all your family there. A city is just a city but with you it transforms into something exciting.”

Warmth spread through Sana’s chest and she reached for Yousef’s hand and thread her fingers through his. She understood what he meant completely. Istanbul hadn’t been the best part of her visit as beautiful as it was. The best part had been spending time with Yousef among all his family. A family who’d welcomed her with open arms. His female cousins taking her and Jamilla to the hammam for an afternoon of pure pampering and shopping for gifts in the kapaliçarşi – the huge covered grand bazaar – that had hundreds and hundreds of shops where they’d chosen gifts for family and friends as well as shopping for clothes – Turkey being the capital of Islamic fashion. She wanted to do the same for Yousef. To have him come with her to Morocco and laugh as Elias and her cousins taught him all the wrong phrases in Darija, as her aunts fed with as much _bastilla_ and _cous-cous_ as they could, to see him burn his fingers on the hot _sfinj_ donuts they sold at the beach. She wanted to share every aspect of her life with him.

“I’d like that, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some glossary terms:  
> amo - uncle  
> khalto - aunty  
> deen - religion  
> adhaan - call to prayer. Is called out 5 times a day from minarets  
> SubhanAllah - God is perfect/glory to God  
> Surah An-Naba - Surah 78 in al-Qur'an  
> ustad - teacher/master - I used ustad rather than mudaris (teacher) because ustad is used across several languages rather than just Arabic.  
> darija - the daily language spoken by most Moroccans. A mix of Arabic, Berber, French and Spanish. Not understandable for Arabic speakers outside of the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia).
> 
> A lot of Sana's feelings inside the Blue Mosque are mine! There's something very special about praying in old Mosques - at least for me - and I have been fortunate to pray in some of the oldest Mosques across the Middle East.
> 
> Also Larache is a real town in Northern Morocco, where my childhood best friend was from. I went with her a couple of times for the summer and Sana's feelings towards it are very similar to my friend's so apologies if anyone from Larache is reading this and objects to it being called a fishing town with not much to do!
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://rumaan.tumblr.com/) if you wish. I will be reblogging some prompt lists etc over the next couple of weeks so feel free to check them out and send me Yousana prompts!


End file.
